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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196653">the bright autumn moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely'>makemelovely</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Legacies (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Character Death, F/F, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, i'll add more tags when theyre relevant, past posie, the wolf man au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:35:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,088</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/makemelovely/pseuds/makemelovely</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Josie Saltzman returns to town after the death of her sister, Lizzie. Her life is soon spun into turmoil as life in her small town takes a turn for the supernatural. Eager to uncover the truth of her sister's death, Josie will have to uncover the nightlife of Mystic Falls, all the while battling her feelings for the mysterious Hope Mikaelson. What secrets lurk in Mystic Falls under the cover of night?</p><p>//or the wolf man au</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the bright autumn moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>to clarify about this au: this is loosely based on the wolf man film from 1941. in this au there are no witches or vampires, but i wanted to include hunters for the drama of it all and bc i felt like it worked well with the au and the characters. the title is a little edited but it is from a poem recited in the movie.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Josie takes the train back home at the first of the month, staring sorrowfully at the scenery blurring by outside the window. The afternoon is reasonably chilly for October, and the leaves on the trees have already begun turning an array of oranges and yellows, reds dipping down against green grass. Autumn is always beautiful in Mystic Falls.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie’s hands sit still on her lap, her fingers laced together almost painfully, as if she could hold together the grief beginning to bleed through her skin. Her phone buzzes on the table, the ringer off but vibration on. Josie waits until the call ends, her phone buzzing once to indicate a text message.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She flips the phone over, the screen still lit up and facing her now. She has two notifications. One a missed call from Penelope from a minute ago, and the other a text message from the same girl.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She didn’t leave a voicemail so Josie reads the message. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Can we talk? Please?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie pictures the other girl on the other end, staring anxiously at her screen and waiting for Josie’s response. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I need time. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Josie decides to send it in the hopes that Penelope will take the hint and not respond, deciding to give the shorter girl the time she asked for.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie’s phone buzzes instantly, Penelope’s next message coming through as spitefully as she had intended. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Whatever. Take all the time you need. Don’t expect me to wait around for you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie flinches at the message, her stomach turning and her throat burning. Her request hadn’t been unreasonable considering it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Penelope </span>
  </em>
  <span>who had wanted the break in the first place. Now Josie knows it was to teach her the lesson of dropping her job and familial duties at the whims of the girl set to inherit the Park estate in its entirety. Josie had gone to her apartment a day before she had gotten the news and found Penelope and Maya in a compromising position. Josie had gotten the call from her father a few hours later and bought a ticket to depart as soon as she could. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The scenery around her slowly loses the blur caused by speed, the train slowing as they reach their destination. Home sweet home.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie grabs her luggage, her stay indefinite, and departs from the train, heading for the bus stop to wait. As she heads towards the bus stop, she passes by Mystic Falls sign, announcing that she’s stepping foot into the town. Josie reaches out, pressing her palm against one of the edges, fingers spread out, spanning the width of a chipped edge and faded lettering. She breathes out, her exhale ragged and weighted down by her own inner turmoil.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She sits down on the bench at the bus stop, picking absently at a loose thread in her leggings, tugging and tugging until it snaps off, pulling out of the fabric entirely. The bus screeches to a halt before her, Josie standing without hesitation. She boards the bus, staring her future in the eye, but with a heavy heart.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>She finds her father sitting at the kitchen table of the Salvatore Boarding House, staring blankly down at a stack of papers spread in front of him. “Dad,” Josie says, watching his shoulders tense, a floorboard creaking beneath her feet. She shifts her weight, swallowing her anxiety and taking another step forward. “What happened?” Her eyes cut to the staircase where they had played as kids, running around the halls and making it a home, playing hide and seek and tag and taking the bones of a house and building a life in it. They had brought life to the boarding house, had loved it as if it had been theirs for all eternity, as if they had been the only owners to know of it, to love its roof and its fireplace and its library. Every piece of history etched in the walls and echoing in the floorboards. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alaric Saltzman pushes his chair back and gets to his feet, his feet heavy, his stance slouched in on himself. His shoulders shake, and his chair scrapes against the ground, the sound filling the silence in the kitchen. In the quiet of the room, it sounds like thunder booming, clouds rolling in and lightning flashing. Atmospheric even in the tension that slowly builds with every flicker of emotion in his eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She’s gone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hearing the words are a physical blow, a sharp sensation in her abdomen as if she had been stabbed, the blade jutting from her body like a display. Images of Lizzie from a variety of ages flicker to life in Josie’s mind. Lizzie, age seven, her hair cut to her shoulders, smirking at Josie after she had won hide and seek. There’s soot smudged along her face, ash in her eyebrows and on her fuzzy pink sweater. She had been hiding in the fireplace which opened into a chimney. They rarely used it, maybe occasionally for Christmas, but it was mostly used for decorations. Framed pictures of the twins on the mantel, the rare picture of Caroline, their mother, filtered through “for the sake of the girls”, they had heard their father say once, his voice low as he spoke to one of his friends.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His friend was dead before the year was up. Funnily enough, a lot of Alaric Saltzman’s friends ended up six feet under.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lizzie at fourteen years old, two weeks shy of their fifteenth birthday and insisting that Sebastian, the most popular boy in school, liked her because MG overheard them talking and, at the insistence of Lizzie, Sebastian had said he liked a blonde that went to their school. Mystic Falls wasn’t exactly big, but Lizzie wasn’t the only blonde in their grade, let alone their school. MG had reluctantly told when he casually brought it up at lunch one day. Her blue eyes had been bright and shiny, a gleam in them as she imagined a world in which Sebastian liked her back. They would later make out at a party when Lizzie was sixteen years old. Lizzie had loved him fiercely for two years, her admiration practically glowing beneath her skin when she spoke of him and even to him when the occasion called for it. Three months into the relationship he had called her while he was drunk and called her by the name of his ex.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lizzie wrangled a confession out of him the next morning while he was hungover, pushing and badgering him until he admitted that he only dated her to get his mind off his ex. Lizzie was devastated for two whole months, weeping hysterically into her pillow almost every night straight. One morning, she woke up bright eyed and declared she was over Sebastian, and that was that. “I don’t need a man. I’m completely content to be single.” Lizzie told Josie proudly over pancakes, stabbing at a blueberry before abandoning her breakfast to sip at her morning coffee.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The worst image is Lizzie, eighteen years old and teary eyed as she begged Josie not to leave. Josie had been accepted to a college across the country, and she was eager to escape Mystic Falls. Josie didn’t hate it in Mystic Falls, but she knew that if she stayed she would. She and Lizzie were inseparable, but not my choice. Not always by choice. The kids at school called her Lizzie half the time even though they weren’t identical twins. They just couldn’t be bothered to tell them apart. At least that changed after Lizzie began dating Sebastian. Sometimes, when their father got drunk enough, he couldn’t tell them apart either. Lizzie pretended she couldn’t tell he had no clue who she was, but Josie couldn’t do that. She saw everything, and she couldn’t forget it. His voice slurring, his hand motions sluggish and his movements far looser than they normally were. His eyes, glazed and distant. When they set upon the twins, there was never a spark of recognition. Just emptiness gazing back at them. His eyes blank, and his tongue loose, he would always slip up and call one of them by the wrong name.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie couldn’t bear to stay anymore. Josie had tried so hard to stop being so selfish, but she couldn’t do it anymore. She had to leave. She had to find out who she was beyond being one half of the Saltzman twins. So she left.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lizzie watched from the front porch, her mouth pursed into a thin line, her arms crossed in front of her. Rain poured down around them, Josie could feel it behind her as she lingered on the porch, the taxi idling in the street. Their father slept through his hangover on the couch. He had asked Lizzie to stay last night, and had fallen asleep after Josie corrected him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s an angry, biting hurt reflected in Lizzie’s eyes, the kind of sadness Josie can feel beating in time with her heart. Her light blonde hair falls like a curtain, her face as open as a window. Josie can see right through her to the anxiety biting at her core, a nervous resolution shining in her eyes, through her stance, illuminated around her in angry waves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie reaches out, pulling her into one last hug. She holds on as long as she can bear to, Lizzie stiff and unyielding in her arms. “Hey,” Josie says, pulling back when she can no longer take the stony silence. She brushes a tear away with the back of her hand, her smile wobbly and weak, a tentative thing. Lizzie watches with a cold face. “At least now he’ll be able to tell us apart.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lizzie’s mouth twists with dismay, something akin to heartbreak etching itself into her features, yet she says nothing. Josie nods, tears sliding down her cheeks with more frequency and speed. She turns away and rushes to the cab, swiftly walking over a cobbled path for the last time for a long while. She had cried the whole way to the airport, staring out a rainy window and hoping Lizzie couldn’t feel the ache in her chest.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>MG told her when she called the next night that Lizzie had spent the whole night crying on the phone with him. Eventually, she had cried herself to sleep. Josie tries to swallow the guilt suddenly flooding her chest, squeezing the air from her throat. It doesn’t really work, but at least she had tried. That’s what counts, right?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At first Josie hated being away from home, but she had grown to love it. She had friends who never called her Lizzie and listened to her speak without interrupting. For once, Josie felt like she could breathe. College sped by with not quite ease, but a lack of reluctance, and soon Lizzie and Josie were fighting a similar fight.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean you’re not coming home?” Lizzie’s voice over the phone is tinny and high pitched, a shriek blasting through to Josie’s end.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie winces, carefully balancing her phone against her shoulder, making sure it's pressed to her ear she speaks to her sister. “Just what I said, Lizzie. I’m not coming home. I like it here, and I’ve made a life here. I can’t just leave.” Josie grabs a bowl of fruit she’s been preparing, holding it in one hand as she heads out of the kitchen and to the living room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You have to come home! You can’t just leave me here alone.” Lizzie protests.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Penelope glances up from her spot on the couch, her eyebrows furrowing for a moment. Understanding dawns when Josie speaks next.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re not alone, Lizzie. Dad’s still there, and MG, too. You’ve been fine for four years, you’ll be fine a little longer.” Josie points out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lizzie’s voice is icy when she speaks. “If you’re going to abandon me, you might as well say it instead of pretending you’re doing anything but that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” Josie chokes out, her voice startled. “Lizzie, I’m not abandoning you!” She exclaims, waiting for the blonde to speak. After a moment, the only sound that’s made is the click of the phone as Lizzie hangs up on her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie hands Penelope the bowl of fruit and slips the phone away from her ear, sitting it on the coffee table and sighing. Penelope grins at her, grabbing a blueberry and popping it into her mouth. “Your sister is so selfish, you know that?” She teases.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shut up.” Josie murmurs, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Penelope’s lips.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Penelope pulls back a little, the smallest space between their lips. “Make me.” She taunts, a Cheshire Cat smile on her face. Josie kisses the grin off her face and replaces one with her own, smiling fondly against Penelope’s mouth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Now, Josie desperately wishes to forget her memories of Penelope, and maybe to find solace against the onslaught of memories associated with Lizzie. Maybe if she had stayed. Maybe if she had never left. Maybe if she had come home after college. Maybe if she hadn’t been so damn selfish.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How?” Josie asks, attempting to drive away any memories of blonde hair and blue eyes and her sister, dead and gone and impossible to reach.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They sit at the table, papers thrown about and a crossbow as well as a gun taking up a hefty amount of space on the surface of the table. “I’ve been training her, you know.” Alaric says. Josie nods. Lizzie had been excited, seeing it as an opportunity to bond with their dad. Josie had never actively sought out the hunter life, but she was happy that Lizzie seemingly enjoyed it. “We’ve been hunting the wolves living here. There was a girl that went missing about a month ago. Vicki Donovan. Her body was found all torn up, gruesome stuff, really. Lizzie had been doing some research of her own and found a spot just south of the creek in the woods where Vicki had been rumored to go to after sundown. She went missing the night of a full moon, so there was more than a good chance the wolves had gotten her.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did she go out there by herself?” Josie asks, her heart in her throat. She thinks of Lizzie in the woods, hair laying around her head in a halo against dirt and sticks and leaves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No. No, she wasn’t as impulsive as that. We scouted the area, and then the next full moon we went out there together. Armed to the point of excess. God, I should’ve never taken her out there.” Alaric whispers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie thinks of Lizzie, a gun full of silver bullets and knives strapped to her thighs, a determined look on her face. “She would’ve gone anyways.” Josie says. She’s not consoling him, just stating a fact. This is her twin, and there is no room in her heart for pity. Not for her father, not when her sister is dead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alaric nods, lips pressed tightly together. “We did a perimeter check. A short one of the surrounding area to see if there were any tracks. We were supposed to stay in each other’s line of sight, but Lizzie wandered a bit out of my field of vision. Or maybe I wandered out of hers, God, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ll never forget what she sounded like.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A flash, less of a memory and more of an instinctual knowledge of what Lizzie’s last word was. “Daddy!” Her voice, cold and pitched high with fright. She would have sounded like she did when she was seven years old and clinging to a branch of an oak tree in their backyard, just on the edge of the woods. They weren’t supposed to climb it because they always went too high, but Lizzie had been bored and then Lizzie had been clinging to a branch with her fingers slipping and tears pouring down her face and anguish evident in her voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie thinks of Lizzie in the woods at night, a monster bearing down on her. She pictures a twig snapping, Lizzie turning on her heel to catch the beast bursting from the shadows, mouth stretching open to reveal fangs as deadly as the bite of a venomous snake. She knows what her sister would have screamed, what help she would have sought in that moment. In her last moments. She knows it because she knows her sister, more than she ever knew herself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did it turn her?” Josie asks, her voice low.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alaric shakes his head. “No. No, it wasn’t aiming to turn. It was aiming to kill. When I got there, the wolf was gone, and Lizzie’s jugular had been torn out. A massive bite, a killing blow. Brutal and devastating. She never had a chance.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie inhales sharply, her grief as tangible as the table beneath her, as overwhelming and life threatening as taking your helmet off in space. Cold seeps into Josie’s body, chilling her bones and freezing her blood in place. Liquid ice crawls inside her veins, splinters of ice reflecting off Josie’s skin in the light. “We’ll get them. Whatever did this to her, I mean.” Josie meets his eyes steadily, a steely undercut of truth and determination beneath her voice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alaric nods, dipping his head. Josie reaches out, taking a silver bullet between her fingers. Its surface gleams in the kitchen’s overhead light. Shiny and permanent, a declaration all on its own. Josie lets it sit in her palm, feels the weight of it and the chill. She closes her fingers around it, holding it close to her and breathing as steadily as she can. She regulates her own breathing, almost dizzy with the weight she’s placing on her own shoulders.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a promise to Lizzie, a promise to their dad. A promise to help ease the suffering of at least one person by taking one monster off the map. Josie never thought she could handle taking the life of any living creature, but for Lizzie? To avenge her, Josie will do anything.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie closes her eyes, briefly picturing Lizzie’s face. It solidifies the thought blooming to life in her mind. When she opens her eyes, she meets her father’s eyes, his head lifted up to look at her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ll get them.” Josie promises, the silver bullet against her palm a promise for her, for Lizzie. “Whatever it takes.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her father looks at her, his eyes dark. “Whatever it takes.” He echoes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Josie exhales.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi i hope you enjoyed! if you're at all interested you can find me on <a href="https://makemelovely.tumblr.com/"> tumblr</a>  and on <a href="https://twitter.com/tyzulafilms"> twitter</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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